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Engelsberg Ideas reviews Christopher Beckman's new book, A Twist in the Tail: How the Humble Anchovy Flavoured Western Cuisine ...

If anchovies have been a food of excess and indulgence, they have also been a food of frugality and want. In the mid-15th century, impoverished young Alpine villagers in Piedmont began making annual treks to Genoa along the ancient Salt Road to bring back salted anchovies to their native hills and valleys, where bagna cauda, an anchovy-infused dipping sauce, first developed. The call of one of these itinerant traders ran: ‘Anchovies of Malaga, of Setabal, buy them, eat them, and they will keep you warm all winter!’ In the 19th century, Basque and Cantabrian women hauled stocks of preserved fish inland from the coastal towns and villages, covering up to 25 miles a day to trade the catch with wine, oil, wheat and vinegar.

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